Steve Jobs, What's Happened in the Past Two Weeks?

Oct. 5, 2011, will go down in history as a day that marked the end of an era: the Steve Jobs Era. 

I'm not going to go into an in-depth biography of Jobs' life because you probably know all of that by now. Rather, I'll show you. 

It's been two full weeks and a lot has happened in that time. Shortly , Raiders' owner and pioneer of the modern NFL, Al Davis, passed away. The St. Louis are in the World Series and may have a legitimate chance at keeping Albert Pujols, and the Giants' nemesis Texas Rangers are playing them. Oh, and the was released. 

While the body of the 4S is clearly the same as the 4, there are some subtle (antenna placement), and not so subtle (Siri) changes. The antenna placement change may be subtle, but it's impact is pretty big. Antenna-gate, begone! Siri is essentially a personal assistant that responds to voice centered at a giant Apple server.

Unfortunately, there have been complaints of Siri not connecting to the server, likely due to an overload of traffic. Besides that, Siri should be revolutionary in the sense that it's from decades ago, but this time around Siri is pretty functional.

The question is will people actually use it to schedule meetings and find locations, and why not? Or will they stick with the "traditional" way of typing in everything?  Time will tell. Let's not forgot about that spiffy new 8MP camera. It's supposedly one of the best in the business. The 4S also gets a slightly scaled down version of the Apple A5 processing chip, which improves performance. Lastly, a 64GB option is now available for the 4S, but that comes in at a whopping $399 on contract.  

Apple sold 4 million 4S's first weekend. F-o-u-r--m-i-l-l-i-o-n iPhones. That's more than half of the total population of the entire Bay Area. In three days. A million of those were sold during the 24-hour pre-order period. Could that have had to do with the passing of Steve Jobs? It's possible. The day of the 4S's release, the stock dropped 20 points due to disappointment with the carry over of the iPhone 4's body, with no revolutionary iPhone 5. Based on that reaction, one would imagine that sales would suffer. But in between the announcement of the phone and the opening of pre-orders, Steve Jobs died. Those numbers may not tell the whole story as people were and are fascinated with the likes of Siri and the new camera, but the drastic shift in opinion is undeniable as shown by those numbers.  

Along with potentially boosting iPhone 4S sales, Steve Jobs may have made some plans for his brainchild company. There are rumors circulating that Steve Jobs made a 4-year plan for Apple in terms of products, since he knew that he was dying. Considering that Jobs had plans for the iPad since around 2007 and still had blockbuster sales at its 2010 release, the potential potency of this 4-year plan could be very high. Another rumor is that Jobs worked on the iPhone 5 until the day before his death. Considering his dedication to Apple and its products, this wouldn't be completely surprising, but it is commendable. This also means that Steve Jobs potentially had a heavy hand in the creation of the iPhone 5. 

So, where does all of this leave Apple? Short term, they're fairly secure. Apple has always had a plan of action for products. They likely have access to technologies beyond the sophistication of today's products, and they will implement those in such a way that still captures the crowd while selling the largest number possible. 

Apple's company image will certainly see a change, as for so long the simple man, in the simple black shirt-blue jeans with the simple design language was the face of the company. Even during his absence, he was remembered for starting Apple with (and Ronald Wayne).

So, what now? Will it be Tim Cook? We just don't know yet. One thing though is that Apple won't be feared like it was with Jobs at the helm. Whenever there's a mysterious Apple event announced, there's not going to be a magical buzz in the gizmo news world. Sure, it'll stir up some excitement, but nothing like a Jobs keynote. Tim Cook has to work with a chip on his shoulder to try and fill a gargantuan pair of shoes. 

I dedicate this to the man who forever changed the tech industry and the way we act in everyday, even shaping the competition along the way, like the iPhone, which brought out the best in rival phone companies, the great Steve Jobs.